Daily Expenses
Claim what each working day cost you, one line at a time with the bill attached, whether or not you are on a travel plan.
/field/expensesDaily Expenses is where you claim what a working day cost: an auto fare, a train ticket, lunch on tour, a night in a hotel. Each thing you paid for is its own claim, with its own bill, and the accounts desk later pays your claims to you.
You do not need a travel plan to claim. A rep working in their own city has no trip to plan, and used to raise a plan for a week they were never going to travel just to record a fare. If you are on a plan, the claims you add on its days show here as well. See Travel Plans.
The screen
The screen shows one month at a time, with the arrows either side of the month's name to move back and forward. The days run newest first, since the day you are claiming for is nearly always today or yesterday. Claimed this month adds up every claim in the month.
Each day has a list for the kind of day. Under it, on a day that can claim anything, are what you have spent that day, how many claims make it up, and an Add claim button.
Each claim shows where it came from:
| Badge | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Mobile | The app filed it when you ended your day: your drive, from the two odometer readings, with both photos. See Claims from your day on the phone. |
| Web | You typed it here, or on a travel plan. |
A claim can also carry HELD, when it matches a claim already filed and waits on your manager, or REJECTED, when your manager decided not to pay it. See When a claim is held.
Add a claim
Set the kind of day
Every day starts as Base City. If you were on tour, pick Out Station Tour or Ex Station Working first, because the kind of day decides what you may claim on it. Once a day has a claim, its kind is fixed and shows Set by the first claim on this day.
Say what you spent on
Select Add claim and pick Spent on: Food, Travel, Hotel or Miscellaneous. Only the categories your kind of day allows are offered.
Enter the amount
For food, hotel or miscellaneous, type the Amount. For travel, first pick How you travelled. A train or bus fare is typed as an amount. A taxi or your own vehicle is worked out from the odometer: see Travel claims.
Attach the bill
Select Attach bill and choose the photo or screenshot of the bill. Every claim needs one, except a journey in your own vehicle. Add a Note if it helps.
Save it
Select Save claim. The claim appears under the day, and the day's and the month's totals go up.
What each kind of day can claim
| Kind of day | Food | Travel | Hotel | Miscellaneous |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Out Station Tour | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Ex Station Working | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Base City | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Leave, No Plan, Holiday, Weekly Off | No | No | No | No |
These are the company's rules. An ex-station day is out and back, so there is no night away to pay for. A base-city day has no meal allowance and nowhere to stay, but getting round the city is a real cost. A day nobody worked shows Nothing to claim.
Travel claims
| How | How the amount is worked out | What to attach |
|---|---|---|
| Train | The fare you type | The bill |
| Bus | The fare you type | The bill |
| Taxi | Distance times the company's rate per kilometre | The bill. A photo of the odometer at either end is optional. |
| Personal vehicle | Distance times the company's rate per kilometre | Nothing is required: nobody issues a bill for driving your own car. A photo of the odometer at either end is optional. |
For a taxi or your own vehicle, enter Odometer, start and Odometer, end. The form shows the sum as you type, such as "42 km at ₹10.00/km = ₹420.00", so you can catch a mistyped reading before you save. You cannot type the amount yourself, and the closing reading cannot be lower than the opening one. A reading has at most 6 digits before the point: with a seventh, the form says "An odometer reading has at most 6 digits" and Save claim stays off until you correct it.
If you have photos of the meter, select Attach odometer at the start and Attach odometer at the end. Both are marked (optional), and the claim saves without them.
The rate in force when you file stays with the claim, so a later change to the rate does not change what you claimed.
Limits
- One claim has a ceiling. A single claim cannot exceed ₹2,000, and a kilometre is paid at ₹10, unless your administrator has changed either figure in Settings. The form warns you before you save, and the save is refused if you go over.
- The ceiling is per claim, not per day. A day is a list of claims, so a day's total can be more than the ceiling.
- A long drive goes over the ceiling. If a per-kilometre journey comes to more than a single claim allows, split it across the days it actually covers.
Claims from your day on the phone
When you end your day in the app with your own vehicle, the app files the day's drive here as a Travel claim by Personal vehicle, marked Mobile. It runs from the morning's reading to the closing one, at the rate per kilometre, with both odometer photos as Start km and End km. If a travel plan covers the day, the claim goes on the plan's day instead.
Look for it before you add a drive in your own vehicle for that day. If you already added one, the app files nothing, so the kilometres are never claimed twice. The cases where the app doesn't file the claim are listed under Your travel claim.
A Mobile claim can't be changed, because its readings are the ones photographed on the meter. If it's wrong, remove it and add the claim yourself.
When a claim is held
The company pays for one vehicle once. When two of you travel together, only the person whose vehicle it was claims the kilometres, and a shared taxi or hotel bill is claimed by whoever paid it. Each of you still logs your own visits.
So when you save a claim, SalesYatra checks it against the claims already filed, yours and everyone else's:
- The same odometer readings. A taxi or personal-vehicle claim whose opening and closing readings are each within 5 km of another claim's on the same day reads the same meter.
- The same bill. The same photo file attached as the bill to another claim, on any day.
A claim that matches is saved but HELD, and so is the claim it matches. Under it you see what it matched, for example "Held for your manager's review: the same odometer readings as Ravi Kumar's travel claim of 22 Oct." Neither claim is paid until your manager decides whether to pay both, one or neither. Your manager is asked by email and in the bell, and the other person is told.
- If you rode together, remove your claim with the bin icon. The other claim is no longer held against it, and your manager has nothing to decide.
- If you didn't, leave it. Your manager compares the two side by side, readings and photos, and decides.
A held claim can't be changed while your manager decides. Your day's drive filed from the phone is checked the same way, and you're told by email if it's held.
If your manager decides not to pay a claim, it stays on the list marked REJECTED, struck through, with your manager's reason, for example "Not paid: rode with Ravi on his bike". It isn't counted in the day's total, it's never paid, and it can't be changed or removed.
A held claim is different from a flagged drive: a flag is only information and the claim is still paid, while a held claim isn't paid until your manager decides.
Flagged drives
Every claim for your own vehicle is checked against your day on the app. A drive the day doesn't account for is marked Flagged for a look, in amber, with the reason in a sentence, such as "120 km claimed; the day's 2 check-ins explain about 62.3 km by road — 57.7 km more."
A flag is only information. The claim stands and the accounts desk pays it like any other. It tells your manager and the desk what to ask about, and you see exactly what they see.
How the drive is checked
SalesYatra works out the route your day's check-ins make: from where you started the day, through each school in the order you checked in, to where you ended it. The straight lines between those places are stretched by 1.4 to allow for roads. If the phone had no position when you started or ended, the other end stands in for it, since a day usually ends where it began.
Visits entered on the portal in one go carry no position or time, so they add nothing to the route. Check in from the app at each school, and the route accounts for the drive.
When a drive is flagged
| Flagged when | Why |
|---|---|
| The kilometres claimed are more than 30%, and then 10 km, over the route | The meter ran further than the work took you. A day with no check-in from the app has only where it started and ended to go by. |
| You ended the day more than an hour and a half after your last check-in, not counting the drive from it | Time on the meter after the work was done. The drive is timed at 30 km/h, so a long way home never flags a day. |
| You started the day more than an hour and a half before your first check-in, not counting the drive to it | The same, at the start of the day. |
| A Web claim on a date you didn't start a day on the app | Nothing places the drive. |
| A Web claim on a day you started with No vehicle today | The day says there was no vehicle. |
| A Web claim on a day the app already filed the drive for | The Mobile claim covers the whole day, so the kilometres are claimed twice. |
| A Web claim starting 1 km or more away from the morning's odometer photo, or ending that far from the closing one | The readings typed don't match the ones photographed. |
| A Web claim for a day with no closing reading on the app | The day closed on its own, so there is no closing photo to check against. |
| The phone had no position when the day started or when it ended | The drive can't be checked. |
The flag shows on the claim here, on a travel plan's days and when your manager validates the plan, on the day in Team on the road, and on the accounts desk's Staff claims. It's worked out each time the claim is shown, so a check-in that syncs later is counted.
Remove a claim
Select the bin icon on the claim. There is no edit: to correct a claim, remove it and add it again.
You cannot remove a claim that has been paid, a claim your manager decided not to pay, or a claim that was added on a travel plan (see below).
Claims from a travel plan
A claim you added on a travel plan's day shows on that day here too, marked Added from the travel plan with the plan's name as a link, and "change this day's expenses there". On that day you cannot add claims here, or remove the plan's. The plan decides when its claims may change: after your manager approves the trip, and again if validation sends it back, but not while your manager is reading it.
Your team's claims
Area Sales Managers and above, and administrators, see two buttons above the month: My expenses and My team. My team lists what they claimed in the month, newest first, with who claimed it, what it was for, the amount, the proof, and Entered from: Mobile or Web. A line above the table counts them, for example "12 claims: 4 filed from the phone, 8 typed on the web", and how many are flagged. A flagged claim gives the reason under its amount. Select Show only flagged to read just those, and Show every claim to go back. Team claimed this month adds them up.
The list is for reading. A claim is the statement of the person who made it, so nobody else can add, change or remove it. Administrators see everyone's claims here.
The Paid column shows UNPAID, PAID, HELD or REJECTED. When some of your team's claims are held, the line above the table says how many, with a link to decide on them under Approvals.
Who approves a claim
Nobody approves claims one at a time.
- A claim added on a travel plan is part of the days your manager validates. See Travel Plans.
- A claim added here, with no plan, goes to the accounts desk as it is.
- A claim that matches another waits on your manager first. See When a claim is held.
The accounts desk pays your unpaid claims for a period together, in one payout from the company's bank or cash. See Staff claims.
After a claim is paid
A paid claim is part of a payout in the books, so it is closed to changes. If you try to remove one, SalesYatra tells you it has already been paid and to ask the accounts desk if it was wrong. If the desk cancels the payout, its claims open again.
Good to know
- On the phone. You add claims on the portal. The Android app files one claim itself, the day's drive when you end your day with your own vehicle, and shows a travel plan's claims.
- On the dashboard. The Expenses by category (INR) chart on your Dashboard adds up all your claims, from this screen and from your plans.
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